NEW DELHI: Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, along with three crew members, embarked on a historic space odyssey aboard the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday. The SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:01 pm IST.
The mission is expected to dock at the ISS on Thursday at 4:30 pm IST, marking the end of a 28-hour journey.
The crew includes the Lucknow-born Shukla, former NASA astronaut Mission Commander Peggy Whitson, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. They boarded the Dragon spacecraft, which is making its maiden voyage atop the Falcon-9 rocket, SpaceX’s transport vehicle for the mission.
Once docked, the private astronauts plan to spend about two weeks aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting a mission comprising science, outreach, and commercial activities.
Shukla will be the first astronaut to travel to the International Space Station, a journey that comes 41 years after Rakesh Sharma’s eight days in orbit as part of the then Soviet Union’s Salyut-7 space station in 1984.
“Dragon’s hatch is closed, all communication and suit checks are complete, the seats are rotated, and the Ax-4 crew is ready for launch,” SpaceX announced in a pre-launch post on X.
The launch opportunity comes after NASA and Roscosmos officials discussed the status of the recent repair work in the transfer tunnel at the aft (back) most segment of the orbital laboratory’s Zvezda service module, NASA said.